


Now The Comb Is Pouring Blood

by straightforwardly



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canonical Character Death (Implied), Gen, Murder Ghosts, Pre-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 20:13:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11905374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: Ensi saves the village—but the cost is greater than she can accept. She tries again.





	Now The Comb Is Pouring Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tentaclekitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclekitten/gifts).



> The title is a Kalevala reference, specifically from section 15, “Resurrection”. ...Not that I’d ever do any of the SSSS characters the disservice of saying they’re like Lemminkäinen, but I thought some aspects of the general situation were fitting.

Ensi Hotakainen swayed but did not fall. She refused to. The day she could not walk from a fight on her own two feet would be the day she drew her last breath. 

Behind her, the village was silent in the manner of those who had not expected to survive, and so, living, knew not what to do. Ensi did not look at them. She looked out upon the forest, from where the swarm of ghosts had come. A rare thing it was, to see so many at once. A village’s worth. There would be another name stuck from the board when the trade boats came back in. But what had drawn them here, to her village?

Spirits did wander. But that explanation sat ill with Ensi. Smacked of laziness. There’d been purpose to the ghosts’ coming. They were not wandering, not lost. They had already tasted blood. 

She closed her eyes. She ached all over, but that was a decades-old complaint. Of larger note was her own spirit, and how it flickered low. To repel so many ghosts was no easy matter. A weaker mage would never have managed it, and it had drained her. She still had enough for one large working, or several smaller ones, but she would be useless after. 

She decided. A rest was in order, albeit a brief one. A little time she had for that. Then she would go into the forest and see if she could find that which had lured the ghosts in. Give it a burial, be it a man or beast, or shatter the working, be it the action of a kade. 

“Grandma!” 

She turned. Onni, wide-eyed and frantic, ran to her. Her first thought: it would be about his sister again, no doubt. A clever girl, Tuuri was, but she had more dreams than sense. It would not be the first time she sent Onni running about because of her. But usually he chose his parents to bother over it, not Ensi. And their village had just suffered an attack... Her attention sharpened.

Then Onni shouted again, and everything fell apart. “No one can find Lalli!”

* * *

Ensi discarded any thoughts of rest: there was no time for that now. She went deep into the woods. Lalli had left no tracks; she’d trained him well. She followed the path the ghosts had left instead. They too left no physical mark, but she had no need for such to follow their trail. The very spirit of the forest drew back from where the ghosts had tread, the darkness of their path more blinding than any spirit-light. 

At the end of the path she found Lalli. He lay alone and small upon the blackened birch leaves, his bird-boned limbs curled loosely towards his chest. Mud smeared against his clothing, stuck to his hair, but not a speck of it touched his face. 

He would have looked as though he merely slept, had the glow of his spirit not been utterly dark. 

Ensi stood there long, her eyes tracing every familiar detail. 

It was not the first time she had seen such a thing. Young and old, strangers and lovers, friends and family. Often had she looked upon faces made strange by the sudden shadow cast over them. 

And yet. None of them had ever been Lalli. Quick-footed Lalli who listened to the forest like it was a mother’s voice. Sullen Lalli, who always reached for the next branch before he’d climbed the first. Quiet Lalli, who sang sooner than he spoke. Lalli, every step the child she had once been and every step utterly himself. 

What had possessed him to come here? She’d never known him to run off into the forest alone; she’d made it clear to him from early on that he was to never enter when she was not there. He’d never disobeyed her. Sometimes her orders made him fall into a childish sulk, yes, but he’d always listened. 

Then she remembered: she had meant to teach him on this day. But chattering Lyyti had waylaid her with her request, and Ensi had agreed. She hadn’t told Lalli of the delay. She had, of all things, forgotten. Forgotten. Such a mistake she had not made since her youth. 

And so, the ghosts had tasted blood.

She lowered herself to the ground, slower than she once might have. Her knees ached as she slid her arms under Lalli’s body. She stood, slower still, cradling her burden close. His bird-bones weighed as heavy as solid earth. 

She turned back to the village, her feet retracing the path she’d taken earlier. Her mind burned, cold and clear. There was only one thing she could do. Only one acceptable way that laid open to her.

But for that, she would need another mage.

* * *

“Focus,” said Ensi.

Red-eyed, Onni looked back at her. But he did not weep. It had always been fear that had driven his tears; now that fear had become fact, none were left to him. The two of them sat on the floor in Ensi’s home, Lalli’s body the dividing line between them. His hand curled around Lalli’s, holding it tight. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What are we—”

“I made a mistake,” said Ensi grimly, cutting him off. “Now I’m fixing it.” She eyed him critically. He seemed dazed, yes, but aware enough. Good. 

So far as she knew, none had ever attempted what she now planned. None had ever been capable of it. Perhaps some mages would have had the ability, but not the knowledge. That was hers, hers alone of all mages, though it had not been until she had seen Lalli lying there in the forest that she had known the purpose of what she held. 

But she couldn’t do it alone. Not a one of the gods would allow one person the power to change the past to their own suiting without nary a trace. There had to be one another: a witness to the time that had been.

Onni was as ready as he ever would be, in the short time that they had. If she was to do it, it would need to be now. 

She began to sing her runo. She chanted the words she had heard from the waters and the forest, sang the words told to her one night by a bear-souled man under his bear-skin cloak, recited the words given to her by her own soul. She lifted her prayer to the gods so that they might hear, raised her plea to the forest and heavens.

And the gods answered.

* * *

Ensi slid into the body of her past self like an inhaled breath. She blinked, once, taking in the sight of Lytti’s small field spread out before her, then looked to the sky. The sun had passed its zenith. She had gained her time—but only a little of it. 

Weariness tugged at her chest, but she couldn't give into it. Not yet. 

She strode away, ignoring the sound of Lytti’s startled squawking. Her eyes fixed on the forest. The path the ghosts had left behind was no more, had been undone by the turning back of time, but she remembered the way. 

She felt the ghosts before she felt Lalli. She broke through the trees to where she’d found him before, and found him there again. The dark horde loomed giant above him; ghostly hands dug into his skin, tasting him. This time, breath still lived in his thin chest; his light was dimmed but not yet snuffed out.

Ensi’s voice rose in fierce song, startling the ghosts. Lalli turned to her, his wide eyes hiding none of his fear. She reached for him, snatching his arm with one hand and dragging him behind her. The other hand she held out before her like a shield as the ghosts began to reach for them both. 

Familiar words rolled out her mouth without her needing to think upon them, calling upon the sun. The trees parted their branches; sunlight poured down. 

The ghosts drew back, hissing. Still clutching Lalli’s arm, Ensi turned and ran. Her runo would not hold long. The sun’s power was already fading in the face of the coming evening. But nor could she do battle then and there. Not while defending Lalli as well. Not without making this whole endeavor pointless. It would take only a moment’s distraction on her part. They’d already drained him to exhaustion. She could hear it in how his feet stumbled after her with more sound than he’d made in more than a year, could tell by how he didn’t even try to pull his arm from her grasp. 

Onni waited for them, nearer to the forest’s edge than she’d ever seen him. She’d never seen him so pale, but he went paler still when he saw Lalli following after her. She saw the questions swarming in his throat, but they had no time for that. Later. It could all come later. 

First, she needed to ensure their safety. She wouldn’t be able to do this a second time. Then, she needed to repel the ghosts for good. Anything else could wait. 

“Where’s Tuuri?” she demanded.

He was an obedient child; he answered. 

“At home. I locked her in her room when I— woke.” Onni swallowed. He looked very young in his uncertainty. “Grandma, what’s happening?”

She ignored the question. “And your parents? Lalli’s?”

“I don’t know.”

There wasn’t time to look for them. They’d made it safely the last time. She’d need to trust they would again. 

She pushed Lalli forward; Onni automatically reached out for him, his hands grasping Lalli’s shoulders. Tears suddenly sprang into his eyes, and Ensi knew with a grim clarity that he hadn’t really believed in the reality of what was around him until that first touch. 

A ring of purple circled Lalli’s upper arm; she’d bruised him with her grip. Lalli had been bone-quiet all this while, but now he looked to her, his voice full of questions. “Grandma?”

She hadn’t the time. She took it anyway. She set her hands on Lalli’s thin shoulders, her hands overlapping Onni’s, and bent her head to touch her forehead against his. She could almost feel the confusion radiating from him. Never had she been so openly affectionate with him, with any of them. She’d always chosen to show her love in other ways instead: a brief nod of approval, perhaps, or a small, hard-won smile. 

She needed to conserve her energy, and yet she could not resist one last, small runo. One of protection. For him, for Onni, for Tuuri, to last as long as all three remained together. 

She drew back, and looked Onni in the eye. “Go back to your sister,” she said. “Use every protective spell you know.”

Onni nodded. Perhaps he didn’t understand what was happening, but he understood this. He understood danger. Lalli looked back and forth between them. And the sun dipped ever lower in the sky.

It was time. 

She watched as they left, then turned back to the forest. She could feel the ghosts coming closer. Her breath rattled in her chest; her spirit felt sore and weary. The first time she’d battled these ghosts, it’d taken much from her, and she’d been well-rested. Now the ghosts were fresh and she was not. 

There was no saying how this night would end. 

Ensi readied herself. The last of the sun’s rays faded from the sky. And the ghosts rushed forward, ready to devour everything whole.


End file.
